I Honestly Believe Runaan's is an Unhealthy Item

WAIT! Before you down-vote, hear me out.

is a significant power spike for a large number of ADCs, and for a good reason; it's a very strong item that provides consistent AOE damage on virtually any ADC. But here's my question: is consistent AOE damage a problem for ADCs?

Think about it this way: what ADCs have AOE abilities? See something odd? Yeah, it's every single ADC in the game except two: and , I even hesitate to include because...he's .

Now, that's all well and good right? Clearly AOE damage isn't strange on ADCs, as it shouldn't be; I'm not arguing that ADCs shouldn't have some form of AOE damage. Quite the contrary, I think this adds to diversity in the role and can make selecting a champion much more interesting. But let's think about how benefits several of these ADCs, shall we?

Single target slows now become AOE slows, consistent crits for the purpose of passive and .

Passive almost stacked instantly which leads to much higher DPS, additional poke on targets adjacent to those snared in traps,

Q now offers multiple rockets that each deal AOE damage, making her more of a monster in close quarters teamfights

Can apply rend stacks to multiple targets, making her devastating in teamfights with a delayed but massive burst of damage, this is more of something that happened in an era long gone when Kalista was actually good, but the example remains

Can now apply passive damage to all targets hit by bolts, leading to really high AOE DPS

Percent health damage to multiple targets at a long range

Not a premier example, but offers heavily consistent waveclear when conjoined with her E

Similar to , becomes even more of a monster in close teamfights, also let's him stack passive super easily on multiple targets

Allows him to stack his W on multiple targets, making his damage much more potent considering the AOE nature of the rest of his kit

So with that in mind, consider this: several of these champions already have really potent AOE damage ( ) and they buy to further exacerbate that strength. Others buy it to counter innate weaknesses ( ).

Therein lies the problem: causes strengths to become that much more overbearing while also covering weaknesses in some kits.

Here's an example: An is now able to slow three members at once instead of one, making her able to not only deal consistent damage to each, but also allow her to prevent them from escaping due to synergy with her passive. This would almost ensure that, should the fight go in her team's favor, the enemy team won't be able to escape.

Or how about this? 's ult allows him to deal piercing bolt damage at a much higher range, applying his passive, but he also has , so that one piercing bolt turns into three, and now instead of two, maybe three people getting hit, now your whole team is hit, and he can E to get a really hefty amount of damage off, not even considering the damage the crits and ult damage would do.

Or this? While in rocket stance, she's hitting three different members with three rockets, meaning three different AOE explosions that deal high damage, making her strength of AOE damage just plain overbearing due to the fact that she has 1 item. This just means that she can wipe your team that much faster because the damage is now much more consistent and affects a larger AOE.

That's the problem with this item: it's not that is overpowered or is just overtuned or 's slows are just plain stupid. It's the fact that they're abusing an item that is covering intended weaknesses of having heavily single target damage (this relates to and mostly) or it's making their AOE damage just plain absurd (here's looking at you and ) .

Several of these champions have popped up over time as being just plain dumb or op or whatever, and I don't think it's an issue with the champions as much as it is with , and the reason I say that is because of the above two reasons. The worst part though is probably that some of these ADCs are going to get nerfed to high heaven because of the item, not so much that their numbers are out of whack. Ex. . She was not even that overbearing if you took out of the equation; at that point, her high AOE damage is reverted back to the intended single target nature of stacking E and rending for high damage. I'm not arguing issues of dragon control and just plain being a strong champion, but I honestly feel half of the problem with her was just .

Tl;dr

is the problem, not X champion or Y champion.

Edit: Urgod is love. Urgod is life.